Archive:Fair Use Policy, Media

THE FOLLOWING IS ONLY A DRAFT FOR A PROPOSED POLICY AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON IN ANY WAY.

The following refers to fair use as understood within the U.S.

Fair use is a necessarily difficult yet navigable area of Citizendium policy. Legal scholars have describe the "fair use" doctrine as "a murky concept in which it is often difficult to separate the lawful from the unlawful." Confounding this, there is only one sure way to tell whether the particular use you wish to use as "fair" really is: by having the matter resolved in federal court.

Citizendium's policy on fair use is designed to steer contributors toward the "clear" side of these murky waters, to try to avoid the precarious situation of fair use challenges, to not prohibit fair use media altogether, and to make the whole area as straightforward as possible. The policy basically follows that of reputable scholarly journals, while balancing and incorporating into the mix Citizendium's ideals of providing libre content to re-users.

What follows is is not legal advise but only an attempt at good faith guidance. The onus of any fair use claim ultimately rests upon the uploaders and re-users of content claimed as fair use by Citizendium contributors.

Section A: First, seek to avoid

The most straightforward way to avoid troubles over fair use is to avoid invoking the doctrine at all. To this end you should apply the following tests before even considering whether to make a fair use claim:

Test 1

Does libre media exist, or could it be reasonably created within the next year or so, that would substantially convey the same information contained in copyrighted media over which you are considering making a fair use claim?

If No, then proceed to Test 2.

If Yes, then your upload does not qualify for a fair use claim on Citizendium.

Test 2

Have you diligently but unsuccessfully attempted to locate the copyright owner to ask permission, and are you prepared to document those attempts on a subpage of the image's talk page? (For an example of a thus far unsuccessful attempt see Talk:Tux/lin64; for an example of a thus far probably successful but as yet inconclusive attempt see Talk:Tux/ccpenguin.jpg; for examples of successful attempts see Image talk:Wessel 1954 fig1.png/Permission and Image talk:Gilad Atzmon - for Citizendium.jpg/Permission).

If No, then your upload does not qualify for a fair use claim on Citizendium. See documenting permissions for help on the next steps to take.

If Yes, then proceed to Section B: Fair use or not? below.